Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and are enjoying a Happy New Year!

I was very pleased to get a few supplies for Christmas and over the moon to get a Hobbycraft mini sewing machine. Have never sewn before, except by hand when I was a teenager (needlepoint to be exact-I think for a Girl Scout badge, maybe) so don't know how well I will do but hopefully I can start incorporating some of it into my scrapbooking.

As most will probably be out partying tonight and drinking in the New Year I will more than likely be home, watching a few classic films and scrapping!

I was lucky enough this weekend to meet up with a fellow scrapper here in the Berkshire area who I found on the Studio Calico website. Some of you may be saying, "why is this so lucky?" Well, for one, scrapbooking is not as popular in the UK as it is in the US, by far. Much to my frustration, I have come to discover this in the past eight years since I have moved here. To give you a for instance I have yet to find a decent brick & mortar scrapbook store as they just don't seem to exist here, unless you live up north or in Ireland. Go figure!?

I have been a member of Studio Calico for about 6 months now, only just discovered them and was more than pleased to notice that a fellow member, whose work I liked, also lived in the Berkshire area. I reached out to her in the hopes that she would like to get together to scrap, or even help organise a crop if we could find enough people to join us.

As it turned out it ended up just being the two of us for now. She generously offered the use of her home for the afternoon so I went with my numerous supplies in hand to meet a new scrapping friend and I have to say that I was simply delighted.

Cat is an incredible scrapper for someone who has only delved into the scrapping world over just a year and a half ago. I honestly think that she doesn't even know how good she really is! She is so extremely creative and talented, using mixed media to produce her artistic creations. I know everyone has their own style and I would probably consider myself a traditional scrapbooker - originally using 12 x 12 for all my layouts and albums in the past, with only quite recently venturing into other sizes and other formats after many, many years scrapbooking.

I know for some scrapbooker's there can sometimes tend to be "guilt" associated with scrapping as we tend to want to keep on top of everything. This is something that I can relate to and as a result of this we unknowingly place a lot of unnecessary "rules" on ourselves as to how we have to scrap a certain way when we do eventually get around to scrapping. But with Cat there are no rules, anything goes - paint, ink, watercolours, tape, vellum, fabric, sewing, embarrassing shots, glitter, ridiculous photos, brushes, die cuts, bad photos, sequins - (again I know some of you may be saying, but this is what scrapbooking is all about anyway) but I still have to say it again, literally everything and anything goes with her!! And it's brilliant!! Like I said we unknowingly put restraints on ourselves, not just in our normal day to day lives - you can't eat that, it's not good for you; you can't do that, people won't approve; you can't say that, what will people think; but sometimes we allow that to carry over into our artistic creative parts of live, even though this completely goes against what being creative is all about.

With Cat, that's not the case. She initially started out with art journals and altered books, then tried Smashbooks and has now ended up creating some incredibly fabulous Project Life pages as well as traditional layouts. (I use the word traditional very loosely here as the only thing traditional about them are the size - 12 x 12).

I really felt very inspired by her and was probably gushing over her like an excited child at Christmas would over a new toy as it has been so very long (probably ten years) since I have had a friend that I can discuss scrapbooking with.

I truly think everyone should see her work as it's so inspiring, so I have posted a link to her blog below, Decision Inspired, as its worth having a good look round her site http://decisioninspired.com/. You just might find a bit of inspiration yourself!Thanks for looking! Please feel free to leave comments as I would love to know what y'all think.

\Supplies used for this layout\ The background paper is one of the cardstock pages that comes with the Red Simple Stories Snap album. Starting along the top the black letters spelling out "Bath" are Thickers and the letters spelling out "Time" are from my stash - very old stickers by Karen Foster Designs (Alphabet 10476), the "Priceless" tab is by Pink Paislee-portfolio phototabs, the Dymo style "Moments" is by Simple Stories-Chipboard 24/7; on the bottom from left to right, the camera sticker is by Echo Park from Everyday Eclectic, the "All Boy" chipboard is by K&Co. chipboard - Kazoo Kids, the "details" sticker is by Simple Stories "Typeset", the red button by Websters Pages - chipboard sticker buttons "Trendsetter", the circle tag behind the love heart is by Jillibean Soup, Journalling Sprouts, the chipboard Love Heart is by Simple Stories chipboard 24/6 and the letter R chipboard is by The Girls Paperie by Margie called Tinsel & Twigs.

Christine/American Girl living in England

About Me

This is the story of my journey through life……..hopefully done with a little bit of creativity, pretty paper and glitter. I have always been “crafty”, drawn to things like felt, construction paper and Elmer’s glue from a very young age! Trying my hand at activities such as art, drawing, painting, music, creative writing and let’s not forget photography. My LOVES: Paper of course, pink & black, anything retro, travel, my crazy JRT Rupert, English summers, lazy afternoons & quite recently fashion, more specifically the Retro & Vintage fashion world and scene,can you dig it (having formerly been a tomboy). Happy that you could drop by to visit my small corner of the blogosphere!